1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the construction of a card connector used with an IC card used as a storage medium of personal computers or the like and a CF (compact flash) card used in a digital camera and other electronic apparatuses.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An IC card connector is commonly used as an additional storage unit of a personal computer. An IC card comes into widespread use as a storage medium of the IC card connector.
The IC card is loaded in the IC card connector to write and read necessary information. To increase operability in loading and unloading the IC card, some IC card connectors have an ejection mechanism for ejecting the IC card.
It is known that the conventional IC card ejection mechanism includes a slide member for carrying an IC card, a locking member for holding the slide member in an IC card loaded position, and a spring member for energizing the slide member in an eject direction when the locking member is unlocked, wherein when the IC card is ejected as the slide member moves in the eject direction, the IC card is pushed out in the eject direction by an energizing force of the spring member.
However, the above-described conventional IC card connector has the following problem in terms of construction. Since an IC card is energized in an eject direction along with a slide member for carrying the IC card, by an energizing force of a spring member for energizing the slide member in the eject direction, the energizing force of the spring member causes the IC card to pop out of the IC card connector.
Although an energizing force of the spring member can be weakened to prevent an IC card from popping out, the weakened energizing force of the spring member would make it difficult to obtain strokes required to eject the IC card, making it difficult to take out the IC card.